


Thaw

by lamardeuse



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-07
Updated: 2010-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-09 08:36:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamardeuse/pseuds/lamardeuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the best of times, Rodney was never in the mood to deal with plumbing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thaw

At the best of times, Rodney was never in the mood to deal with plumbing. On his hard-won beach vacation after fourteen godforsaken months in Siberia, he was so far from being in the mood that it wasn't even in the same state with him. Which was New Jersey, by the way, and that should have been his first clue that he was losing his mind.

He'd been here for three days now and the phone hadn't rung once, nor had he received a single e-mail from the Air Force. He was starting to feel like the pimply kid at the senior prom, the one who both hoped and dreaded that someone would ask him to dance.

“Oh, for Christ's – ” He stopped just inside the door to the kitchen, staring at the slowly spreading puddle that was forming in front of the sink, fed by a steady drip from the cabinet underneath. Turning on his heel, he marched to the phone, then dialed the number he'd been given to call in case of emergency.

The phone rang four times before it was picked up and obviously dropped by the person at the other end, if the crashing and banging was any indication. “H'lo?” said a scratchy voice.

“Can you fix leaks?” Rodney demanded without preamble.

“What kind of leaks?”

Rodney goggled at the receiver for a moment. “What do you mean, what kind of leaks?”

“There're all kinds of leaks,” the voice drawled. “Roof leaks, leaks in your boat, leaks in your oil tank. So my answer will depend on what kind of leak you have.”

“Oh, for – _plumbing _leaks. My sink faucet is gushing water all over my floor.”

“Oh, sure,” the voice said, and Rodney could tell its owner was grinning, the bastard. “I can fix those.”

“Well, do you think you could get up here, say in the next thirty seconds? I'd like to actually enjoy some of my vacation.”

“Wow, if a leaky sink is enough to ruin your vacation, you need to take more vacations. Or maybe less vacations. I'm not sure about that. It's kind of early.”

Rodney glared at his watch. Six-fifteen. “How soon can you be here?”

There was a soft scratching sound. “It depends on where you are.”

“I'm on the third floor, two floors over your head,” Rodney sighed.

“Okay, right. You're McKay.”

“Yes, I'm McKay. I'll be pleased to deal with the introductions after you've _fixed my sink_.”

There was a low chuckle. “I think I finally get it. You've got a leaky sink, don't you?”

Before Rodney could open his mouth wide enough to produce the yell, the voice added, “On my way,” and hung up in his ear.

“I hate you,” Rodney snarled at the receiver before slamming it back in its cradle.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
“That is not 'gushing',” the guy said. “Just so you know.”

Rodney honestly didn't care. “I honestly don't care,” he snapped. “Just please do what you're supposed to do.”

“Hey, a 'please'. I didn't think you knew that word.” He stuck out a hand. “I'm John Sheppard, by the way. I know you said introductions after I'd fixed the sink, but I thought we might as well get it over with.”

To his credit, Rodney hesitated for only a second before taking Sheppard's hand. He was, Rodney had noted with dismay when he'd gone to open the door a scant four minutes after hanging up the phone, one of those people who looked devastatingly good from the moment they sprang out of bed. His hair was somewhat ridiculous, sticking up in the back like a coxcomb – but apart from that he was almost blindingly attractive.

Okay, yes, Rodney had not been laid in nearly two years now, not counting the astrophysicist from Minsk who had more back hair than any five men. Although he had been very warm, and it being January, Rodney hadn't been inclined to be choosy. But even being completely objective, Sheppard was the best-looking handyman that had ever shown up at Rodney's door, and wasn't that porn fantasy number one hundred and seventy–

“Earth to McKay.”

“Hm? What?”

Sheppard was looking at him patiently, one eyebrow slightly raised, the way one might look at a slow-witted puppy, and that definitely wasn't part of the fantasy. “I said, did you have a towel I could borrow? I'd like to sop up some of that water before I have to get under there.”

“Yes, of course, fine,” Rodney babbled, retreating to the bathroom, where he snatched three large towels out of the closet and brought them out for Sheppard. Smiling his thanks, Sheppard took them from him and used two of them to mop up the spill, then spread out the third and lay down on it. As he wiggled his way under the sink, Rodney's eye couldn't help but be drawn to the splay of Sheppard's legs, encased in tight, faded blue jeans. His gaze followed the legs up to where they came together in a vee, and surely it wasn't unethical to ogle the handyman when he was just putting himself on _display _like –

“Uh-oh,” said Sheppard, right before the hissing noise started, which was immediately followed by the jet of water shooting out into the middle of the kitchen, neatly soaking Rodney's pants below the knee.

“Oh my God, you're the worst handyman _ever_!” Rodney shouted, leaping back. “What are we going to do?”

And then as suddenly as the water started, it stopped altogether. Rodney stared as Sheppard emerged, hair flattened back and smile pure mischief.

“Gotcha,” he said, grinning.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
“It's good to see you quit pouting.”

Rodney jerked his head away from his contemplation of the ocean to glare at John Sheppard. The temperature was moderate, but he was only wearing long swimming trunks and a garishly orange Hawaiian shirt open to the navel. “What are you talking about?”

Sheppard gestured up the beach to where the beach house sat. “You've been cooped up in there for a while,” he answered. Cape May beach houses weren't anything like the cool pads in the Sandra Dee movies; on the contrary, they tended toward late Victorian monstrosity, with massive wrap-around verandahs and eaves stuffed with gingerbread. Rodney had rented the entire top floor of one of these overblown edifices, and he had spent the last two days sleeping in it, recovering from the last vestiges of jet lag and lying on the couch watching the _Red Dwarf _DVDs he'd rescued from storage while wrapped up in every blanket he could find.  He still hadn't warmed up from last March; he wasn't sure his blood would ever make it to 98.6 degrees again.

“I'm sorry, I thought this was _my _vacation. Which means that I can spend it as I please, hm?”

Sheppard grinned annoyingly. “Yup, that's what it means, all right. I'm just glad to see you're still alive.” He pointed up the beach. “I mean, even Mrs. Arbuthnot has been out more than you have.”

Rodney snorted. Mrs. Arbuthnot, the second floor occupant, was eighty-three years old. On the rare occasions when he'd been out of bed, he'd seen her wading through the surf, playing tennis on the court adjacent to the property, and rollerblading. He hated her almost as much as he hated Sheppard, who seemed to spend most of his time outdoors and shirtless and Rodney had _not _been ogling him yesterday for an hour as he painted the garden shed.

“Mrs. Arbuthnot is a freak of nature,” Rodney snapped, “and I've been recovering from a very trying experience.” At Sheppard's raised eyebrows, Rodney looked away. “Not that that's any of your business.”

Before he could protest, Sheppard had flopped down beside him on the sand and was sitting expectantly, staring out at the waves as they came crashing in. “Nice weather we're having,” he said, bumping Rodney's shoulder companionably.

“Oh, all right,” Rodney sighed. “I just came back from over a year in Siberia.”

“Huh,” Sheppard said. “I just came back from over a year in Antarctica.”

“Good for you,” Rodney muttered. “Were you being punished as well?”

When Sheppard didn't answer right away, he turned, only to be shocked to discover that  Sheppard's mouth had thinned to a grim, tight line. “Something like that,” he said.

Something inside Rodney shifted, surface grating against surface like a glacier against a mountain. “Oh, I – ”

“You cold?” John tugged gently on the sleeve of Rodney's windbreaker like an inquisitive toddler.

“I can't get warm,” Rodney confessed.

Sheppard's fingers trailed up his arm to his elbow, then back down again; Rodney suppressed a shiver that had nothing to do with his core body temperature. “That was never a problem for me down at McMurdo,” Sheppard told him. Then he frowned. “If you're that cold, how come you didn't go someplace like the Bahamas or Jamaica?”

Rodney sighed. “I did. It was too hot; I felt like I was suffocating.” He waved a hand. “This reminds me of summers as a kid. We used to go for family vacations on Prince Edward Island.” He paused. “In Canada.”

“Yeah, I'm actually one of the six Americans who knows some Canadian geography,” Sheppard drawled. “So you had good times there?”

“_Family_ vacation, so no, not particularly. My parents always ended up fighting about something or other, and Jeannie – my sister – lived to make my life a living hell.” He thought back. “Our most memorable disasters involved potato salad. I'm still not sure that was a coincidence.”

Rodney turned toward Sheppard to find the other man regarding him with a definite twinkle in his eye, and no, he did not find that attractive. “Oh, never mind,” he huffed, shoving himself to his knees. “I'm going back to the house. Season Three awaits.”

“Which show?”

“_Red Dwarf_.” Rodney smirked, certain Sheppard had never heard of it, but his eyes lit up even more and he suddenly intoned in a perfect Kryten voice, “It's the same old story. Droid meets droid, droid loses droid, droid becomes chameleon, chameleon becomes blob, droid gets blob back again, then droid loses droid, chameleon, blob and everything.”

Rodney gaped at him.

Sheppard shrugged. “It's been a while since I've seen it. I'm paraphrasing.”

  


    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

They ended up on Rodney's couch after seasons three and four (hey, six straight hours of television did not make this Rodney's longest date since grad school, all right?) with the detritus of an extra-large pizza box and several empty cans of Molson Canadian strewn over the floor. Sheppard seemed content to spend his afternoon and evening watching TV, but from time to time Rodney could swear he was being watched. Truth be told, Rodney was doing a little watching of his own; after all, he'd seen these episodes at least sixteen times apiece, but he'd never seen someone as good-looking as Sheppard enjoy them. He didn't exactly fit the mold of a typical science fiction geek, but he knew far too much dialogue for him to be anything else. And his laugh, which sounded almost rusty from disuse, was not the laugh of someone with matinee-idol features.

“Well,” Sheppard said after the last episode had rolled, “I think you've put up with me long enough. Thanks for having me,” he added, smiling, and that conjured up all kinds of dirty images in Rodney's head that he did his best to stomp on as quickly as possible.

“It was good to watch them with a fellow – uh, fan,” Rodney managed, smiling back in a way he hoped wasn't too idiotic.

Sheppard gestured toward the garbage-strewn floor. “Here, let me help you clean up,” he offered.

“Oh, no, that's fine, really,” Rodney began, but Sheppard was already bending down. A little worse for beer, Rodney reached down himself, just in time to catch Sheppard on the way up. The top of Sheppard's head collided with the underside of Rodney's chin, causing his top and bottom teeth to come together with a resounding _crack_.

“Oh, man,” John breathed, and suddenly his hands were soft on Rodney's jaw, cradling it with an astonishing gentleness. “Sorry about that.”

“My – fault,” Rodney managed, not because he was in pain but because Sheppard's touch had robbed him of his ability to form complete sentences.

Gingerly, Sheppard tipped up Rodney's jaw to inspect the crash site more closely. “You okay?”

Rodney nodded, causing Sheppard's fingers to slide over his skin. “Nothing broken.” He ran his tongue along his teeth just to be certain. “Fine.”

Sheppard released him and Rodney felt the disappointment like another blow. Then he pointed a finger at Rodney's face and ordered, “Don't. Move,” and Rodney's knees went weak. God, it really had been too long since he'd gotten laid.

Instead of proceeding to ravish him, unfortunately, Sheppard ducked down and threw all the beer cans into a pizza box, then took them to the kitchen. Rodney heard the clatter and bang of the cans hitting the recycling bin, and then he was back, standing before Rodney with a half-smile on his face.

“You can move now if you want.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Well, of course I can – it's not like I was waiting for you to – oh, shut up,” he snapped, when the half smile doubled in size.

Sheppard watched him for a moment, openly this time, and Rodney found himself stilling again, unwilling to do anything to break the spell. “I guess it's my turn to show you a good time,” Sheppard murmured finally, and every thought – not to mention about ten IQ points – went dribbling out Rodney's ears. _Oh, yes please_, he thought, and then flushed, terrified he'd said it out loud.

“Rodney? I said, you ever been windsurfing?”

Rodney blinked at him. “Wh-what?”

Sheppard smiled. “Windsurfing. The waves around here aren't great for traditional surfing, so I rented a board – ”

“You're one of those crazy extreme sports – people, aren't you?” Rodney asked, mouth gaping in horror.

Sheppard stared at him, then took a step closer, a wicked grin lighting his features. “Yes, Rodney, I'm an adrenaline junkie of the first magnitude. I live for danger, the thrill of not knowing if I'm going to get out of my next wild stunt in one piece. If you say yes, I'll risk your life in ways you couldn't imagine in your worst nightmares. You'll be lucky if you're still breathing by the time I'm done with you.”

Rodney did the only thing he could do in the face of that speech. He took a deep breath, gazed into those green eyes and gulped, “Okay.”

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
It was only the next day, when he was standing waist-deep in the ocean in a wetsuit, that Rodney realized he had been hoodwinked by Sheppard's Rasputin-like charm.

“Shouldn't I have a helmet, too? I should have a helmet.”

Sheppard only smiled at him. “A helmet won't stop you from breaking your neck.”

Rodney's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Breaking my – oh God, all right, what do you do for a living, anyway? Are you a handyman? Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't know if I should be trusting my neck to a handyman. I have a very valuable neck, as it's the main thing connecting my brain to the rest of me.”

Sheppard arched an eyebrow. “Most of the time I fly helicopters. Is that any more reassuring?”

Rodney lifted his chin. “I don't know, to tell you the truth. Most of the helicopter pilots I've met tend to be somewhat unstable.”

Sheppard barked a laugh. “That's pretty accurate.” He laid a hand on Rodney's arm; Rodney could feel the warm, steadying pressure even through the layer of neoprene. “Look, I'm not gonna let anything bad happen to you. We'll take it nice and slow, okay?”

Rodney studied Sheppard's face, surprised to find sincerity peeking through the con man exterior. “I must be insane,” he breathed.

“Nice and slow,” Sheppard repeated, and Rodney sighed and nodded.

“All right,” he said. His mind flashing back to his empty inbox this morning, he murmured under his breath, “It's not like I have anything left to lose.”

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
Sheppard did indeed take it nice and slow, introducing Rodney to all the fundamentals of windsurfing, including how to fall, before graduating to more complex maneuvers. By the time Sheppard felt Rodney was ready to actually get on the board, Rodney was shocked to discover that _he _nearly felt ready.

His hands were still shaking when he gripped the boom and lifted the sail, but when the wind filled it and propelled him forward, he experienced a sharp, pure moment of exhilaration that shot fire through his veins. So this was what Sheppard had been talking about, the thrill associated with taking a real physical risk. A little too much terror in it for his taste, but nevertheless, it was...well, _fun._

“Hey,” he called out, to the spot behind him where he imagined Sheppard was, “this is –”

And that was the moment when the wave sent him flying through the air, ramping the excitement factor up exponentially. That's why it was too bad that when he crashed back into the sea, he lost his balance and toppled over.

Sheppard was near him in a flash, hauling him to his feet and prying his fingers off the boom.

“What happened?”

“You weren't paying attention,” Sheppard said shortly. “And what did I say was the first rule of windsurfing?”

“Girls make passes at guys in neoprene?”

Sheppard rolled his eyes. “Always pay attention.”

“Yes, well. I'm usually fairly good at that, but I was – too busy.”

“Too busy?”

“Too busy becoming an adrenaline junkie. There, are you happy?”

Sheppard's mouth twitched. “Ecstatic.” He jerked a thumb at the board. “Want to try it again?”

“Of course,” Rodney snapped. “Why wait for your next fix?”

  


    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
After three hours out in the waves, Rodney felt as rubbery as the suit that had begun to chafe at important parts of him. Sensing his exhaustion, Sheppard dragged him back to shore – over his protests – and helped him up the stairs, then jogged back down to stow the board and sail in the shed.

Rodney stood in the middle of his living room, his knees knocking. He fumbled repeatedly at the zipper of the suit, but his finger and thumb couldn't press together strongly enough to grip the tag.

“Here,” Sheppard murmured, suddenly appearing in his doorway. His own suit was open halfway down his chest, revealing a trail of dark, curling hair. “Let me give you a hand,” and okay, Rodney should get excited at the way Sheppard smiled crookedly at him as he crossed the room, but he couldn't summon the energy.

Sheppard's fingers were deft and strong, and they pulled Rodney's zipper down easily from neck to navel, then slid to his shoulders, where they began to pry him out of the suit like a microwave burrito out of its plastic casing. Rodney winced as the sand that had wormed its way inside the suit abraded his skin.

“Sore?”

Rodney shook his head. “Sandy.”

Sheppard chuckled. “Sorry.” The next thing Rodney knew, Sheppard's hands had slipped under the neoprene, guiding the suit down while holding it away from his body to minimize the scrape of sand on skin. Rodney's gaze flew to Sheppard's face, but the expression of concentration was unreadable.

Once he had freed Rodney's arms, Sheppard paused, his fingers curving to fit the hollow of Rodney's waist. Rodney stood, breathing shallowly and fast through his nose, the warm August air raising goosebumps on his chest as the suit hung limply from his hips. He felt exhausted and wrung out and raw, and he'd never been very good at this, but that didn't stop him from leaning forward and kissing Sheppard softly on the mouth. Sheppard stiffened for a breathless, panic-inducing moment before he tilted his head and kissed Rodney back, just as softly.

“My contract is up,” Rodney blurted. “I know they're going to call, but I have no idea what I'm going to say to them when they do, because I could work a hundred other places but they – well, let's just say they've got the shiniest toys, and I would be missing out on so much if I said no. But then again, going back to someone that kicked you in the balls and shipped you off to a frozen wasteland can't be very smart, can it?”

Sheppard blinked at him for a moment, then cupped Rodney's cheek with one hand. “Sometimes it's okay to do things that aren't too smart, as long as your gut tells you it's right.”

Rodney blinked back; he couldn't recall ever obeying the dictates of his 'gut' in his life, but somehow this didn't seem the time to mention that, especially when Sheppard leaned in again and kissed him, with a slow, deliberate intent that left Rodney clinging helplessly to Sheppard's shoulders in order to keep himself upright.

Still kissing him, Sheppard shoved off his own suit, then kneeled down in front of Rodney and carefully eased the suit past his now very interested erection. When the wetsuit lay in a tangled heap at his feet, Sheppard nuzzled into the curls at the base of Rodney's cock and darted his tongue out for a taste, and Jesus –

“Oh, oh wait, let's –” Sheppard looked up at him hotly, and Rodney's face flushed. He flipped a hand, suddenly embarrassed. “I, uh, I know this must sound ridiculous, but as much as I'd like you to do that, I'm worried you're going to get a mouth full of sand. I'm sorry.”

Sheppard stared at him for a moment, then pressed his face to Rodney's thigh while his shoulders shook, and it took Rodney a moment to realize he was _laughing_. Before Rodney could get too indignant, though, Sheppard kissed his leg and rose to his feet. “Okay, then,” he said, hooking an arm around Rodney's neck and hauling him in for a deep, spine-tingling kiss, “let's take care of that.”

They stumbled, still kissing, into the bathroom, where the glass-walled shower was definitely built for two. Rodney turned away to fiddle with the taps, though it took him forever to remember how to work them because Sheppard wrapped himself around Rodney from behind and planted sucking kisses on the back of his neck. They let the pounding spray rinse the worst of the sand off them, sensitive fingers checking one another for stubborn remnants. Sheppard picked up the bottle of shampoo and squeezed a little into his hand, then, to Rodney's surprise, applied it to Rodney's hair.

“Okay?” Sheppard asked, and Rodney nodded dumbly, more turned on by Sheppard's nails against his scalp than he had been by the tongue on his cock. He let Sheppard maneuver him out of the spray, then reached blindly for the bottle himself. His gaze never leaving Sheppard's face, he began to reciprocate, feeling the slick slide of the lather and hair under his fingertips. When he soaped behind Sheppard's ears, Sheppard closed his eyes and groaned.

“Christ,” Rodney breathed, biting Sheppard's chin before licking his way back into his mouth. Sheppard's hands left Rodney's hair to pull him close; Rodney's erection was trapped against Sheppard's hard thigh, and Sheppard's cock fit snugly against his hip, and God, who knew you could get this turned on from shampoo?

Sheppard backed up until they were both under the showerhead, and Rodney kept kissing him as his hands continued to move through Sheppard's hair, chasing the last of the lather. He could barely breathe with the water cascading over both their faces, but hey, breathing was overrated anyway, and now one of Sheppard's hands was cupping the mound of Rodney's ass, while the other was – oh –

Rodney moaned into Sheppard's open mouth as Sheppard slid the bar of soap down the length of Rodney's spine.

“Yeah?” Sheppard asked, voice rough.

“Y-yeah,” Rodney stuttered, and Sheppard shoved him backwards out of the spray again, then slid to his knees and licked up the length of Rodney's cock as the first soap-slick finger circled Rodney's hole.

“Oh, God,” Rodney breathed, hand flying out to brace against the wall of the shower, spray like tiny needles against his chest and belly as Sheppard swallowed him down and pushed inside him in the same perfect moment.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
Rodney awoke just as the shadows were lengthening across the bedroom, slanting toward sunset. He was disoriented for a moment, because he wasn't usually pressed up against a warm body, but once enough of his brain kicked into gear he remembered.

The body – Sheppard's – stirred, ass shifting against Rodney's groin, and Rodney realized his dick had evidently woken up before he had. “Mmmmm,” Sheppard said, and the vibration of it hummed along the surface of Rodney's skin.

Tentatively, Rodney slid the palm of his hand down Sheppard's arm, then down and over to his belly, then lower still. Sheppard made another dirty, contented noise as Rodney's hand closed around him; inspired, Rodney bit Sheppard's shoulder and was rewarded with a gasp.

“Yeah, okay,” Sheppard slurred, and before Rodney had time to think, _yeah, okay what?_ Sheppard had ground his ass back against Rodney's erection in an unmistakable gesture.

Rodney's mind emptied of every intelligent thought. He'd never done that before, or had it done to him, and he had to figure out a way to tell Sheppard this without embarrassing himself completely, and God, the fact that Rodney's dick wanted to fuck Sheppard bowlegged was _not helping_. Finally, he hit on a solution. “Oh, but I don't have any –”

Sheppard scrabbled at something on the nightstand, and the next thing Rodney knew he was waving a condom packet and a small tube in front of Rodney's face.

“I might've run down to the drugstore while you were asleep,” Sheppard said, and Rodney could hear the smile even though he couldn't see it.

Rodney stared stupidly at the tube and the condom for a moment, then snatched them from Sheppard's fingers. “All right,” Rodney snapped, because he was a genius and he could do this and his dick really, really wanted to, “fine.” He flung off the sheet, then shoved at Sheppard's shoulder; obediently, Sheppard rolled onto his stomach and parted his legs slightly, and God, he'd known Sheppard was gorgeous, but he hadn't known he was _beautiful_.

Taking a deep breath (he could do this), Rodney positioned himself between Sheppard's legs. Sheppard pillowed his head on his arms and closed his eyes, and Rodney felt his stomach flip over at the sight of his eyelashes, dark fans of vulnerability against tanned skin. Shaking his head at the flight of fancy, he laid the condom and lube aside and leaned down to press his nose to Sheppard's hair. He breathed in the scent, honey and lavender, of all the ridiculous things, and his cock brushed the firm swell of Sheppard's ass and they both groaned.

“God, Rodney,” Sheppard husked, hips shifting restlessly.

“Don't rush me,” Rodney rasped back, lips trailing down Sheppard's neck, roaming over his shoulder blades, tongue darting into an armpit and making Sheppard squirm. He spent long minutes on Sheppard's back, kneading with hands and fingers no longer unresponsive and weak, and then started at the soles of his feet and worked his way up. By the time he reached his destination, Sheppard was cursing and pleading, and Rodney had just enough confidence to flip the cap on the lube and drizzle some onto his fingers. He watched his own hand part Sheppard's cheeks as though they belonged to someone else, watched his own fingers slowly disappear inside Sheppard's body with a curious detachment, but when Sheppard whimpered and shoved himself to his knees and began to fuck himself on Rodney's fingers, Rodney slammed back into total, heartstopping awareness, and suddenly it was _hottightGodfucknownownow_–

Gasping, Rodney snatched up the condom packet with his free hand and tore it with his teeth, then pried out the condom and rolled it carefully onto his dick, his mindless display of dexterity the result of long years of practice with fine electronics.  Withdrawing his fingers from Sheppard's body reluctantly, he quickly slathered some more lube on the condom, then braced one hand on Sheppard's hip while the other guided his cock to Sheppard's entrance.

“Okay,” Rodney breathed, “I'm going to –” but before he could finish the sentence, Sheppard was shoving back, taking him in.

“Oh, wait, wait, you'll – oh, yes, fuck,” Rodney's protests melted into insensible groans as Sheppard's ass pressed snugly against Rodney's groin. He paused for a moment, shuddering, then, gripping Sheppard's hips, he began to move, shallow thrusts at first that swiftly escalated into deep, reaching lunges. When Rodney reached under his body and wrapped a hand around him, Sheppard collapsed onto his elbows and let his head hang down, and Rodney realized he was watching his own dick push in and out of Rodney's fist, and Christ, he'd been determined to hold out for as long as he could, but that was more than a man could stand. Grasping Sheppard's shoulder in his free hand, he pistoned into him helplessly, then shoved in as deeply as he could, coming in a series of knife-sharp pulses that felt like being gutted.

Sheppard groaned as Rodney came, but Rodney knew he wasn't quite there yet, so he pulled out as swiftly as he dared and rolled Sheppard over, then replaced his hand with his mouth. It had been a while since he'd done this, but it was a little like riding a bicycle, and he soon had a rhythm that had Sheppard groaning constantly and shoving himself  into Rodney's eager mouth. He came with a soft, quiet sigh that sounded almost regretful, and Rodney did his best to swallow around him, gradually bringing him down from the heights.

“Okay, so,” Sheppard said, after he'd dragged Rodney up to lie beside him and kissed him, licking his own flavor off Rodney's tongue, “wanna order a pizza?”

Rodney stared at him. “Don't I rate – I don't know, some kind of – performance appraisal?“

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. “Well, I figured Mrs. Arbuthnot is probably going to give us one the next time she sees us, so I didn't think you'd need two.”

“Oh my God,” Rodney breathed, burying his hot face in Sheppard's neck as he chuckled and wrapped his arms around Rodney's back.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
The SGC called six days later, and Rodney said yes. By that time, he wasn't cold any more.

**Author's Note:**

> First published March 2007.


End file.
